Ehrenreich's Book example essay topic

Getting by with more than money In the book Nickel and Dimed On (not) Getting By in America the author Ehrenreich, goes under cover as a minimum wage worker. Ehrenreich's primary reason for seriptiously getting low paying jobs is to see if she can "match income to expenses as the truly poor attempt to do everyday". (Ehrenreich 6) Also Ehrenreich makes it extremely clear that her work was not designed to make her "experience poverty". (6) After completing the assignment, given to her by an editor, she had planned to write an article about her experience. Her article purpose intended to reach the community that is financially well off and give them an idea how minimum wage workers deal with everyday life. It also illustrated to the Economist of the harsh reality in the ultra-competitive job environment and how some one in a low paying career can not survive.

Ehrenreich's motives gave her the tools to experience poverty from a statistical standpoint, but kept her from experiencing the problems poor people face everyday in life. The insight to the fact that maybe a person on welfare needs to be there not because they do not work hard enough but because the way society is setup they are going to be doomed to from the beginning. For example, her personal experiences described gives the reader knowledge that unless you are "Superman" you can almost never work enough to get ahead in life, and you would not have enough time to "go to college" to gain the education for a higher paying job. The first person point-of-view personalizes the book and that allowed me to be drawn into the storyline and plot completely. Some ways she handled situations angered me. I did not like a few parts of the book, they seemed to be confusing, but all these attributes in the end showed a human spirit flaws and all.

Ehrenreich wants to find a ways to improve the quality of life of the working class. While working for Wal-mart, Ehrenreich discussed unionizing with her co-workers. The purpose of the union is so the workers can get a higher hourly wage. Her downfall in Minneapolis is when she can't find affordable lodging. Ehrenreich stayed in hotels which become very expensive.

The accommodations in these hotels proved to be almost inhabitable. The rooms were small, most had no air conditioning. The windows had no screens so they could not be left open to have some air circulation. If she would have taken the job at Men dards she may have not failed in Minneapolis. The most difficult problem Ehrenreich faces is lodging.

Finding a place to stay is very costly and exhaustive. As Ehrenreich finds out, a lot of her coworkers live inside their cars or with roommates in very small quarters. There is one part of the book that I really did not care for and not real sure what it has to do with her argument. While Ehrenreich is in Maine on one Saturday night she goes to a tent revival and she talks about her how she starts expecting to find Jesus out there in the dark, gagged and tethered to a tent pole and how Christianity is to crucify him again and again. I am not sure how this pertains to the main point of the story or provides support to the point. I was shocked that she never offered to help any of the women she worked with in any way.

Outside of Ehrenreich's experiment she is financially well off. I am confused as to why she did not help Holly when Holly hurts her ankle and has to take herself to the emergency room. I think she did very well in Florida for herself. Being a Waitress is probably the best paying low wage job someone could have if you work at a decent restaurant and have a good disposition. During Ehrenreich's experiment she relocated to a city, would find a low-wage job and cheap housing, while attempting to match income to expenses for one month. Ehrenreich chose cities based on employment opportunities and the availability of affordable apartments.

She established essential ground rules for the project: 1- skills gained from her education could not be used in her job search; 2- take the highest paying job offered; and, 3- live in the cheapest accommodations available. On occasion Ehrenreich would bend the rules. For example, in Florida she used her foreign language skills to greet German tourists with "Guten morgen" (good morning). Another rule Ehrenreich broke while working in Minneapolis she failed to take the highest paying job offered. Ehrenreich reminds readers that she cannot fully experience the world of the low-wage worker because she possesses such securities as a house, a bank account, medical insurance, and good-health. These luxuries are incomprehensible to the average low-wage worker.

In addition, Ehrenreich only lives in each city for one month, giving her a limited view of a world that many middle- and upper class workers cannot fathom. Ehrenreich did not match income to expenses in any city, although she came close in Portland. Ehrenreich credits this only to the fact that she worked two jobs seven days a week and she received free meals on the weekends. Her summation of the experience is simple: wages are too low and rent is too high.

Using her straightforward style of writing, Ehrenreich's book flows from chapter to chapter and is an easy read. Readers can appreciate her candidness as she learns more and more about the unskilled labor force. She states, "But I am realizing that, ... one job will never be enough... jobs are so cheap- as measured by the pay- that a worker is encouraged to take on as many of them as she possibly can" (p. 60). Trickling throughout her narrative are bits of humor, interspersed with Ehrenreich's vivid descriptions, some of which cause me as a reader to cringe. For example, when Ehrenreich is working for the maid service and she describes cleaning the toilets. Overall, I enjoyed reading Nickel and Dimed.

The layout of the book seemed easy to follow and it allowed me to view a world about which I had no prior knowledge. Ehrenreich captured my attention from the introduction and held it until the last page. Her witty and clever writing style tweaked my interest in the plight of America's poor. Although Ehrenreich works tirelessly to provide readers with an accurate image of America's working poor, one visible weakness that frequently appears throughout the book is the reminder she can and will escape these hardships. She has the luxury of returning to her real life at any time. Ehrenreich's claim that the people who work these jobs cannot survive is difficult to accept, for everyday millions of Americans do survive.

Somehow they manage to find housing and feed themselves and their families. It is not an easy task, but these people get by as best as they know how. Although Ehrenreich stresses the need for change as far as the unskilled jobs and workers are concerned, sadly she offers no real solution to this problem. Reading Nickel and Dimed, enlightened me to see how some people have to live.

The idea behind writing the book provided an interesting look into poverty, however, Ehrenreich did not offer any real solution to the problem at hand. Ehrenreich made the assumption that all persons working these low paying positions are uneducated, unskilled, and just off of welfare. Which this is not entirely true a lot of these courageous people have some education if not college degrees. In the book I believe some people are richer in their families with love and respect that the highest paying careers could not satisfy. Material items are not as important to a great deal of the population. As long as their loved ones have a roof over their head, food on the table and clothes to wear the rest is just icing.

I know people who have fortune in their bank accounts and they are some of the poorest individuals you could ever meet.